Migrants will face higher entry fees in order to fund public sector wage increases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rishi Sunak stated that hefty hikes in visa fees and the levy placed on overseas workers accessing the NHS will fund more than a billion pounds to pay wage increases of up to 7%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Teachers are poised to end their protests following the Government’s pay announcement yesterday, but physicians have pledged to strike over the below-inflation settlement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
More borrowing and tax increases were ruled out as means to support the \u00a32 billion plan by the Prime Minister.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mr Sunak said: \u201cWhat we have done are two things to find this money. The first is we\u2019re going to increase the charges that we have for migrants who are coming to this country when they apply for visas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAnd indeed, something called the immigration health surcharge which is the levy that they pay to access the NHS. So all of those fees are going to go up and that will raise over a billion pounds.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The charity Praxis, which supports migrants and refugees, claimed that the Government was treating people born outside the UK as \u201ccash cows\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Josephine Whitaker-Yilmaz, its public affairs manager, said raising \u201calready eye-wateringly high\u201d visa fees risks seeing people fall deeper into poverty and insecurity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But Mr Sunak said choices had to be made over funding public sector pay rises. He added: \u201cI\u2019m not shying away from that, because I think that\u2019s the right thing to do.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Around half of the cost will be met by a rise of up to 20 per cent in visa fees and increasing the immigration health surcharge from \u00a3624 to \u00a31,035.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Whitehall departments will also have to \u201creprioritise\u201d resources to help pay the rest of the bill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mr Sunak insisted that was \u201cnot about cuts\u201d but was \u201cjust about focusing on public sector workers\u2019 pay rather than other things\u201d.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Migrants will face higher entry fees in order to fund public sector wage increases. Rishi Sunak stated that hefty hikes in visa fees and the levy placed on overseas workers … <\/p>\n